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A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

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Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#21

Post by caturopath »

kick wrote: post #7

It's amazing how rude Facebook, reddit, and in this case, greedy companies, can be. If he cared enough about anyone knowing who he was, he'd have told someone. This is just blatant disregard for a man's privacy.

Trail names are ubiquitous, and generally aren't used for pseudonymity to protect one's privacy.

I don't think it's a reasonable presumption based only on the fact that he hadn't mentioned his legal/previous name that this person did not want to news of his death to reach people from elsewhere in his life.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#23

Post by renewiltord »

kick wrote: post #7

It's amazing how rude Facebook, reddit, and in this case, greedy companies, can be. If he cared enough about anyone knowing who he was, he'd have told someone. This is just blatant disregard for a man's privacy.

He's dead, dude. There is no privacy. Diogenes of Sinope solved this already.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#24

Post by kick »

renewiltord wrote: post #23
kick wrote: post #7

It's amazing how rude Facebook, reddit, and in this case, greedy companies, can be. If he cared enough about anyone knowing who he was, he'd have told someone. This is just blatant disregard for a man's privacy.

He's dead, dude. There is no privacy. Diogenes of Sinope solved this already.

There is privacy. Citing a philosopher that made his life into a joke doesn't magically make privacy disappear.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#25

Post by ColanR »

thomasqbrady wrote: post #5

The Screeps detail seems like something that could be fairly easily pursued... there can't have been that many players of that game to begin with, let alone those that would care so much about it that they would journal their thoughts about it. A quick check of the GitHub repo doesn't show he contributed code, but might he have opened an issue, contributed to docs? Might there be someone who was active in the communi…

If someone wants to check, I'd bet he at least forked or starred the github repo. A script to pull the list of those people, minus anyone whos been active since april 2017, would probably show his account.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#26

Post by caturopath »

kick wrote: post #16
ballenf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He posed for a number of photographs and videos. He interacted with many people. He never expressed the desire to remain anonymous that you intuit. If someone wants to slip away quietly into the void, there are much better ways to do it than this path. I'd argue it's honoring him and the honorable life he seems to have led to pursue this investigation. Not to mention there may be a number people who will get peace fr…

He didn't say his name, though. At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous, and I think it should be respected. The idea that privacy can be violated like this solely because random Facebook users are interested in it and on the off-chance that family he hadn't interacted with in years might find some abstract comfort despite not being close at all is just incredibly bizarre.

> At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous

At minimum, he was using a nickname.

You might think it's likely that he was keeping private his non-trail identity, but that is not the minimum explanation.

(FWIW, knowing about through-hiker culture, I don't think it's even the likely explanation, but that's just my opinion.)

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#27

Post by jhardy54 »

thomasqbrady wrote: post #5

The Screeps detail seems like something that could be fairly easily pursued... there can't have been that many players of that game to begin with, let alone those that would care so much about it that they would journal their thoughts about it. A quick check of the GitHub repo doesn't show he contributed code, but might he have opened an issue, contributed to docs? Might there be someone who was active in the communi…

Required reading, IMO: https://screeps.com/forum/topic/2937/a-strange-request-for-h...

I've spent a few days looking into this and haven't been able to find anything. There's also a big thing about "algae pools" "stock markets", etc, which didn't seem to be about Screeps.

I tried to find games that had these mechanics, and ended up spending a bunch of time looking through Spacestation 13 forums, but I'm leaning toward these references being about a game that he wanted to invent.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#28

Post by kls »

caturopath wrote: post #26
kick wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say his name, though. At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous, and I think it should be respected. The idea that privacy can be violated like this solely because random Facebook users are interested in it and on the off-chance that family he hadn't interacted with in years might find some abstract comfort despite not being close at all is just incredibly bizarre.

> At minimum it's a desire to stay pseudonymous At minimum, he was using a nickname. You might think it's likely that he was keeping private his non-trail identity, but that is not the minimum explanation. (FWIW, knowing about through-hiker culture, I don't think it's even the likely explanation, but that's just my opinion.)

I find it somewhat poetic that he was heading for the Keys. As this is exactly the person you meet down here, many people are known only by their given nickname and many times like this gentleman seems to be, have been successful and just want to get away from the world. You can sit in a bar next to a fishing bum and a billionaire and not know who is who. He is exactly the type of person the Key's attracts and it is ashame he did not reach his goal. Point being I understand the utilization of a given nickname, it is almost a second birth name of a new life, a new life that they themselves are seeking. Thus the name can sometimes become more important than their birth name.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#29

Post by PeterisP »

kick wrote: post #7

It's amazing how rude Facebook, reddit, and in this case, greedy companies, can be. If he cared enough about anyone knowing who he was, he'd have told someone. This is just blatant disregard for a man's privacy.

The laws and principles of privacy protection are generally built from the perspective that people have privacy interests that need protection, but dead bodies aren't people anymore and have no privacy rights. We do have certain restrictions about the deceased, but those are designed to protect the interests and privacy of their surviving family, relatives and friends, not the deceased themselves.

For example, we can read and even publish the private diaries and intimate correspondence of dead people, and the only privacy that needs to be accounted for is the interests of other parties in that correspondence and the (living) people talked about in these messages - but the dead don't care about anything any more, or at least that's the general assumption.

Re: A nameless hiker and the case the internet can’t crack

#30

Post by 1-more »

thom wrote: post #10
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #2

Seems like a case of hasn't cracked yet, not can't crack.

Reminds me of the old adage that if you want to find out how to do something in Linux, it's quicker to make a post saying "Linux can't do X!" and watch the rebuttals roll in than ask the question "How do I do X?"

haha very particular form of Cunningham's Law! Thank's I'd never heard that one before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Cunningham's_L...
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